I loooooove to play tour guide. I love it when my friends come visit me so I can have a sense of renewed appreciation for Tokyo. I’ve become a bit jaded and everything that was once cool and exciting is now banal. Well, dear readers, I get to do what I love to do now. I’m gonna let you in on some romantic and interesting places to visit in and around Tokyo! Hopefully you’ll consider a honeymoon here! I’ve got a lot of advice to give but this is just one location that is special to my heart.

First up, you can’t miss Hakone, located in Kanagawa prefecture to the west of Tokyo. This is a mountainous area famous for Lake Ashi and spectacular views of Mount Fuji. The most economical way to get there is the Odakyu Line Romance car (reserved seating), which takes 85 minutes and costs roughly $20. A regular express train (non-reserved seating) costs about $11 and takes about 2 hours. I’ve been to Hakone many times, including our 2 year anniversary, so I’ll use my personal pictures to give you a peek:

I can’t imagine a more perfect place to take engagement photos. I know there are lots of great places out there in the U.S. of A., but Tokyo really is an awesome place. Let’s take a look at some of the areas we hope to be shooting at and some inspiration!

If it’s a clear day, a perfect view of the Tokyo skyline can be seen from the Odaiba islands.

It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk about the actual ceremony portion of our wedding. I think this is the most wide-open detail of the day so I’ve really dreaded putting pen to paper, so to speak, and writing out what will go down. It’s also touchy for me because I know Mr. G’s parents won’t be there to celebrate with us which makes me want to cry! It would be really nice to have both of our parents there but Mr. G’s parents will be with us in spirit; I’ll leave it at that.

We won’t be having a religious ceremony as Mr. G is atheist and I’m Buddhist, but want to keep it as neutral as possible. And oh yeah, we’ll already be married! See what I mean by wide-open? All the traditional things that usually happen at a ceremony don’t need to happen at ours!

We need to pick an “officiant” of sorts who can at least MC what’s going to happen. We want our ceremony to be silly and fun and emotional and meaningful. Just how will we accomplish this?… read more

We are tackling the paper crane tradition. We’ll use the paper cranes to decorate our backyard. We’ll put them everywhere: hanging along the red brick wall that leads into our backyard, strung around our focal point/altar, hanging from trees and bushes, and scattered on the dessert, buffet, and guest book table. We’ll also leave some origami out on the tables along with instructions so guests can help us reach our thousand-crane goal.

Maybe Tokyo isn’t my hometown, but it sure feels like it. Remember when I lived there? That was pretty weird. I’m actually homesick for Tokyo””the lights, the quirkiness, the energy. Japan has four seasons, and in the winter in Tokyo it gets so cold it snows just a bit. Tokyo is most beautiful during the cherry blossom season in late March through early April, or when the leaves change color during fall (known as “koyo“). Avoid summer as it is unbearably hot and humid, and September is the rainy season and prone to typhoons.

Dinner was behind us and impromptu dancing had begun in the middle of the yard. People were demanding that Mr. G and I have a first dance so we looked at our iPod playlist and chose “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Elvis. It was a really awkward song to dance to and I wish we would’ve put a lot more thought into that spur-of-the-moment decision. We don’t have pictures either, except for this very blurry one taken by a guest.

(guest photo)

The big hit of the night was “Lucky” by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat. Go figure!

Our last wedding business of the night was dessert. Our caterers brought out our cupcake tower and I suddenly had a great desire for sweets.… read more

When we had last left off, our cocktail hour was coming to a close, it was getting dark, and the tables were being set by servers for the salad course. Mr. G and I snapped some quick shots in natural light while everyone was seated and dined on Caesar salads.

After the salad, the buffet was opened up for the guests to feast on roast chicken, beef, new potatoes, stuffing, Yorkshire pudding, and vegetarian Indian curry and rice. We rented chafing dishes for the caterers to put the food in and keep the food warm in throughout the night.… read more

After our newlywed portraits and family portraits had been completed, it was time to schmooze. I turned to our make-shift bar to get the party started right when I came to a startling discovery.

“WHERE’S THE WINE?!?!”

My one bridezilla moment was when I realized no one had put out the wine. These people were trying to kill me!

My dad grabbed the wine that was chilling in buckets inside. We started out with one bottle of red and white at each table, and the guests could help themselves to hard alcohol, soft drinks, juice, and beer over by the food stations.